Report: AD's job at Rutgers safe because of his working on getting them into B1G
According to this article, the AD's ability to secure a spot in the B1G is reason for keeping his job. And college sport is about the student-athletes right... give me a break
Hypotheticals about what would happen to someone in another line of business are pointless. In college sports, I can guarantee you there are a lot of guys like this. Most will never get fired or probably even disciplined. The Rutgers AD tried to intervene, suspending him and sending him to anger-management classes. If that had a positive effect on Rice, then yes, I do think that's important to note. You don't think it matters if the AD's actions had positive effects on his behavior?
The AD had ALL THE VIDEO of the coach acting like a psycho. He's had the video for over a year now and has been sitting on it. He admitted as much on ESPN duirng the OTL intefview yesterday.
All of this excuse making for the AD is pathetic. He was trying to sweep it under the rug and hope that it would go away without anyone finding out.
It's good to see another sane viewpoint here.
Right. Anyone that has a different viewpoint MUST be insane. (eyeroll)
I'm actually impressed that, by and large, this community doesn't get swept up in knee-jerk hysteria. (Well, maybe after we lose a sports game...)
The Rutgers AD tried to get Rice some help. Maybe he didn't do quite enough, but it's not like he engaged in a cover-up. When you suspend your coach for improper conduct, that's kind of hard to keep under wraps.
If I or anybody else I know behaved as he did, physically and verbally abusing others at a job, they would be fired. Since he was their superior, it is worse since they were unable to file a complaint without fear of retribution. On top of that, this unethical tool apparently fired an assistant coach (who compiled the video) for blowing the whistle.
Why did the AD keep this abuse a secret? Why didn't he give the abused athletes the freedom to leave the program?
If Rutgers fails to fire the AD, it's a travesty. If the President of the University also had knowledge of the video, he should be fired as well.
All of these people are unsuitable for any position of authority in the future.
The student athletes and the fired assistant should sue and are likely entitled to major damages.
This whole fiasco should inspire a movement to give student-athletes greater freedom and rights. I would even suggest breaking up the NCAA monopoly which uses its power to exploit and abuse student-athletes.
First of all, lots of athletes did leave. Nothing stopped them. In case you didn't know...
Second of all, I'm fairly certain Rice himself had more to do with the assitant's firing than the AD himself.
Finally, you sound like OTL.
This is what happens when you judge without knowing all the detais.
First of all, don't athletes have to sit out a year if they transfer? That's not exactly freedom to transfer. In case you didn't know....
Second of all, according to reports I've looked at, the assistant (Eric Murdock) brought the issues with Rice to the AD's attention in July 2012 and was later let go for "insubordination." If that's true, it's clear the AD was directly involved or negligently uninvolved in Murdock's firing.
Finally, you sound seriously uninformed.
Coaches are in charge of hiring/firing their staffs, not athletic directors.
my post just above. The AD SHOULD have been involved. And ultimately the AD IS in charge of all hiring and firing, especially if they have reason to believe it is being done improperly.
No AD is going to force a coach to hire/keep an assistant he doesn't want. That AD will quickly be unable to attract top talent. The athletic director is in charge of the head coach and it is the head coach's responsibility to assemble a staff.
Rice decided to not renew a coach. This happened prior to the suspension. There would be no reason for any AD to force one of his head coaches to hire/keep an assistant coach that the head coach did not want.
Do you think when John Beilein replaced his coaching staff that he needed to have each firing and each hiring approved individually by Dave Brandon? I'd imagine the conversation went something like:
JB: Dave, I've decided we need to replace our assistant staff.
DB: Ok, let me know what I can do to help. Here are the financials you need to work within. When you have a recommendation for hire, we'll sort through the paperwork.
JB: Cool beans.
So the AD has no responsibility for what goes on in his athletic department? The AD has no responsiblity for the firing of a whistleblower by a coach who (according to video shown to the AD) physically and verbally abused student-athletes?
How about this conversation:
Rice: I'm gonna can that $%#$%&^* who ratted on me for knocking some of my players around.
AD: Good idea. We don't need rats like that around. Just make sure that video doesn't get out. And make sure nobody else is taping when you decide to kick some kid's a$$.
Rice: Cool beans. (High fives the AD)
Yeah, that's the kind of AD we need in college athletics.
Yeah, I'm sure the conversation went exactly in that fashion. Come on, you're beating up a straw man.
Oh come on. Assistant coaches come and go all the time.
We don't know the timeline of what Murdock told the AD and when. All we know is that Murdock's contract was not renewed in July - a decision made by Rice. Then in December Rice was punished by the AD.
Student Athlete Welfare <<<<<<<<<<<<< Dollars
Sounds about par for the course when it comes to the NCAA
I am surprised that there has been little comparison made between the situation at Rutgers and Bobby Knight at Indiana. Knight engaged in similar behavior for years. It was only when a disgruntled former staffer had the video of him choking Neil Reid that Knight was put on zero tolerance probation (much worse behavior than Rice in my mind, though I agree Rice should have been fired the first time). Nobody called for IU president Myles Brand to be fired, in fact he was hailed for standing up to Knight for putting him on probation (though many criticized Brand for being so harsh on Knight. Later Knight was fired for violating his probation when he grabbed a student that called him "Knight." Of course, Knight had 3 national championships and Rice has a losing record.
If the AD had been half as worried about protecting the kids from an abusive coach as some of you on this thread are worried about him losing his job, none of this would have happened.
Anytime someone uses the "would someone please think of the kids" line, without anything else to go with it, I assume they have no idea what they are talking about.
These aren't kids. They are adults.
At least people don't have to assume you don't know what you are talking about. You put it right down in words and make it obvious.
You are talking about 18-21 year olds being abused by an adult authority figure who has ultimate power over their entire lives. He can completely destroy them by pulling their scholarship. And you can't see the the problems inherent with that? And how it might be part of the AD's job to step in and protect them from being abused?
Good fucking grief. No wonder so much abuse ends up going unreported.
You know when else 18-21 year old adults gets berated by authority figures? In military boot camp. Do you have an issue with how our armed forces get trained? I would assume that it works just fine in that case.
The AD fired the guy and he isn't going to get a head coaching job for a long time because of this. What else do you want? Nuke the entire Rutgers athletic program from orbit?
We could have a civil conversation about this. Trust me, I'm game to go back and forth with you. But you first have to be civil.
You're the one who decided to say that I must "not know what I'm talking about" because of some semantics argument about whether 18-21 year olds are technically adults or kids. Don't lite a crap-bomb on my doorstep and then ask what I'm all cheesed up about.
The AD only fired the coach because ESPN released the tapes. He had no intention of doing anything before yesterday. DId you even watch the interview? He spent the entire interview defending the coach and made it clear he felt the issue was closed. It was only after he got back to his office and realized what a shit storm had kicked up that he fired the guy. So the firing has nothing to do with what actually occurred and everything to do with CYA.
So what else would I like? Athletic DIrectors with integrity who do the right thing is pretty much #1 on my list. Didn't we just go through this with Penn State? Obviously the Rutgers AD can't be counted on to do the right thing. He sat on this video for YEARS. Sure, now that it is exposed, he fired the guy. Great. That is like breaking up with your mistress after your wife conrfronts you with video evidence that you're cheating on her. Bully for you--what a stand up move.
As for the military, I would hope most people would understand there is a big difference between going into the military and playing college basketball. One is preparing you for surviving a life and death struggle. The other is preparing you for playing a game. Even given that, I doubt many in the military would say that firing basketballs at people's heads is an effective form of discipline.
Obviously the Rutgers AD can't be counted on to do the right thing. He sat on this video for YEARS.
He was first shown the video in December, at which point he suspended Rice and ordered him to training. Nice try.
He was TOLD about the stuation, and he HAD THE VIDEO almost a full year ago. Whether he actually watched the video or not is his problem, not mine, as THAT IS HIS JOB. The situation was brought ot his attention in mid 2012.
I apologize for using plural years. I should have said he sat on the video for nearly a year, which is just as bad.
Go back and read the article. Murdock showed him the video in December, not before.
The AD had access to ALL the video the moment the allegations were brought to him in mid-2012. It was HIS JOB to review the tape. If you are told your employee is abusing students and you have video tape, it is YOUR JOB to watch the tape or at least get an assistant to watch it for you.
The fact that Pernetti sat on his ass and forced Murdock to make a "Mike Rice's greatest hits" mix tape before doing anything just further proves my point about how little integrity he has. He had full access to video of this behavor for months and months and either chose not to watch it or watched it and chose to do nothing about it. Oh, except to fire the whistleblower. He managed to make time for that.
20 hours a week of practice. 20 weeks in a season. And that's just when the games are being played. If you think it's an ADs job to sort through 400 hours of practice video - 800, actually, over two seasons - to find the 30 minutes' worth of stuff that got Rice fired, you have a twisted idea of his job description. The burden of proof is on the accuser. It's entirely reasonable for Pernetti to tell Murdock to show him.
Unless you think it's reasonable for an AD to hear a complaint from a former assistant coach and think, "oh shit, I'd better drop my meetings with donors, scheduling calls for 20 different sports, interviews with potential coaching candidates, compliance paperwork, and the thousand other things an AD does, so I can watch 800 hours of video to find that one time the coach might have thrown a ball at someone's head."
No, it absolutely is NOT his job to do that, nor is it an assistant's. Murdock brought the accusation. Murdock is the one with the responsibility to prove it.
He was a CURRENT assistant coach who was claiming that the coach was abusing students. So yeah, I damn well DO think that maybe someone in the AD's office (the AD does have people that work for him you know--he isn't a one-man shop) should have maybe looked at some practice recordings instead of just sitting around for 6 months hoping that the assistant coach was a lying lunatic with an axe to grind.
As I've said before, listeining to the attitudes on this board, it is becoming increasingly obvious why so much abuse goes unreported. If it isn't the Athletic Director's job to protect the students from an abusive coach, then who the hell is supposed to do it?? The Tooth Fairy? I mean the AD is only the coach's boss and all.
except that it was months rather than years. But you should save your breath. There seem to be quite a few hardheaded and/or uninformed individuals here who are immune to logic. This hardheadedness is the reason people like Rice get hired and then tolerated despite criminal misconduct. It's the reason incompetent and/or unethical AD's and University Presidents keep their jobs and get paid the big bucks despite massive incompetence.
Yes I had my timetable off by a bit--he was informed in mid 2012, which means he only sat on the video for about 10 months, which admittedly isn't "years". That doesn't really change my point but I was wrong to say "years"
As for your other point, it is exactly right. For some reason, people are unbelieably tolerant of incredibily unethical behavior, and they refuse to see how their tolerance enables more of that behavior to occur.
Because tolerance is a bad thing?
Are you seriously putting forth the idea the being tolerant of unethical behavior is a GOOD idea?????
What, did you work for Enron or something???
This is your definition of unethical. Some people in Mississippi think interracial marriage is unethical.
He's just not fireable by the University President, who rubberstamped his wrist-slapping mini-suspension of RIce for what was obviously unacceptable conduct that should've resulted in immediate termination. The UP needs to resign, as some Rutgers faculty have been calling on him to do, after which his replacement can clean house.
Wrist slap?
How often is a D1 head coach suspended by their own AD? The only other I can think of is Calhoun. But I don't remember if his suspension was from the NCAA or not.
How often is a D1 head coach taped whipping basketballs at his players heads & kicking and shoving them around the court, not to mention the verbal abuse? Maybe most AD's don't have to suspend their own coaches because they don't hire crazy assholes to coach?
If you think Mike Rice is a rare exception, behavior-wise, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you.
In any university there is always a faction of a faculty that want the president to resign. They are just using this PR blip to get their voice heard. Nothing new here.